Before Time Runs Out (Charles & Company Romance, #1) by Amy Matayo

 

Graduate student Bree Sanders is failing the one class she needs to get her degree. So when her professor gives her an ultimatum—ace her dissertation or risk having to repeat her final semester—she knows she has to pull out all the stops. After scrambling for an idea, she decides to create her own Ghost Club, a club that blames ghosts for unsolved crimes, the same type of club originally founded two centuries ago by Charles Dickens.

What she doesn’t expect is to find an original copy of one of Dickens’ early works, or to be transplanted into Dickens’s actual ghost club meeting, circa 1870, the instant she picks it up.

When Bree shows up in nineteenth-century England wearing cut-offs and an old t-shirt, her only option is to hide. The Cambridge of 1870 won’t look kindly on a woman dressed like her. So, when Theodore Keyes finds her tucked behind a bookcase at the Trinity College library and immediately demands to know where she came from, she knows he doesn’t belong here either. Turns out she’s right; the same book caused him to time-travel from 1947 almost three months ago and he’s been stuck in England since.

Together, the two vow to work side-by-side in their search for the lost book that will take them home. But as their feelings for one another deepen, Theo and Bree are caught between a desire to return to the lives they each left behind, and the knowledge that if they find the book, they won’t be able to leave together.

In the end, they each must decide which sacrifice is worth making—the one that will cost them their hearts, or the one that could cost them their very existence.

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Happy release day to this new book by author Amy Matayo!  I don't know how this feels as an author, but as a reader, it can be a bit scary when an author you love steps into a new genre.  Into the unknown. . . (is anyone singing with me?!)  Because what if you don't like it?  That's how I was feeling about this book.  Time travel romances can be hit or miss for me.  It's not a genre that is easy to do well.

I shouldn't have worried.  Honestly, I freaked myself out for nothing.  haha.  It took me a little bit to be convinced and to really invest in the characters and the story but once I was in, I was in.  The plot of this book is interesting and it wasn't like anything I've been reading lately so that felt really good.  It had a couple surprises for me that I didn't quite predict so that was also fun.

This author always does a good job of giving her characters substance and making them feel like every one of us.  A little bit broken in some places but brave in moving forward and facing life.  That was both Theo and Bree.  I really liked them both.

This is the first book in a new series and I'm excited about it!  Time travel romance, here we come!  This book is available in KU if you have that.  Happy reading!

Content:  mild peril, mild violence, kissing

- I received a complimentary copy of this book.  All opinions expressed are my own.